Re: meanwhile, back at Ellis Island . . .

[George Robinson <GRComm...>]

Which is an excellent book.

Of course, to further pursue this thread in a serious vein, two things
occur to me. First, the Zionist movement has always had a strong
tradition of people changing their "ghetto" names to hebrew ones -- Ahad
Ha'am, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, David Ben-Gurion, Yehuda Amichai, and so on.
I suppose if I made aliyah, I'd change my name to Gedalyah Ben-Yoel,
which is the Hebrew name I've been using in my synagogue for over a
decade (another story for another time). 

And of course, there is a fine American tradition of writers and artists
re-inventing themselves by changing their names -- Walter Whitman
becomes Walt Whitman, Samuel Clemens becomes Mark Twain, etc. -- a vivid
reenactment of the classic American dream of being reborn in the New
World. And, in fact, many of the Ellis Island "conversions" were
actually voluntary, not forced, the product of men and women who wanted
to become wholly American from the moment they first drew breath here.

Of course, there's also the wonderful 19th-Century opera singer Emma
Albani, who wasn't Italian but needed to sound Italian to get work --
she came from the state capital of New York and that's from whence  her
genuine Italian surname derives.

George


wiener (at) mindspring(dot)com wrote:
> 
> I believe that my roommate for Junior Year at Hebrew University ulpan
> did just that -- changing his name from Stuart Weinberg to (Rabbi)
> Stuart Weinberg Gershon.  BTW, he's the author of "Kol Nidrei: Its
> Origin, Development, and Significance".
> 
> Bob
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan (at) staff(dot)chuh(dot)org>
> To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> Date: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 9:26 PM
> Subject: Re: meanwhile, back at Ellis Island . . .
> 
> >So, here's a question.  Why don't all the people who know their names
> were
> >changed from something change it back to what it was originally?
> Okay, I know
> >last names were imposed upon us in the first place, but Sean
> Ferguson, for
> >cryin' out loud!?!?!?
> >Lorele
> >
> >Seth Austen wrote:
> >
> >> on 2/28/01 10:44 AM, George Robinson at GRComm (at) concentric(dot)net
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > For years and years my father would tell me that the Robinson
> came from
> >> > the English branch of the family -- and in fact I do have English
> >> > cousins, but their name is Green and like a complete schmuck I
> never
> >> > questioned this little discrepancy. Then one night my wife (then
> of only
> >> > a few months) and my father are shmoozing in my parents house and
> she
> >> > asks, "Robinson, what kind of Jewish name is that?" and he
> replies,
> >> > "Well we think it was Rabinowitz and they changed it at Ellis
> Island."
> >> > I'm in the doorway when I hear this and I yell at him, "What
> happened to
> >> > the English branch of the family?" He replies, "What are you
> talking
> >> > about? Their name is Green."
> >>
> >> Great story. My father remarried to a Green, her family is Jewish
> from
> >> Kentucky, probably no relation to your Greens...
> >>
> >> >>>
> >> >>> George Richard Robinson (Now THERE'S a really authentic Jewish
> name!)
> >>
> >> Seth Austen (another of those really Jewish sounding last names,
> originally
> >> was Aisenberg and Grafman before it got changed. It really drove me
> crazy at
> >> KlezKanada, all these people who thought I was a goy, oy vey)
> >>
> >> --
> >> Seth Austen
> >>
> >> http://www.sethausten.com
> >> emails: seth (at) sethausten(dot)com
> >> klezmusic (at) earthlink(dot)net
> >>
> >
> >----------------------
> jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+
> >